New Robot Soldiers Can Gallop at 25Kmph

WASHINGTON: US scientists have developed a new fourlegged robot called WildCat that gallops at 25 km/h on flat ground and will aid military and rescue operations.

The robot was built by Boston Dynamics, a technology company founded by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A new video shows off the robot's ability to run on flat surfaces but the machine is expected to eventually be able to run quickly over all types of terrain.

WildCat is a free-running version of one of Boston Dynamics' earlier quadruped creation called Cheetah, a super fast robot that could sprint, on a treadmill at least, up to 45.5 km/h — faster than Usain Bolt, the world's fastest man.

Though WildCat is slower than its predecessor for now, it is untethered.

Wildcat is being developed as part of the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency's Maximum Mobility and Manipulation, or M3, programme, which seeks to overcome the current limitations that ground robots face in terms of agility, 'LiveScience' reported.